52 Captain E. H. Barclay—A Sorrowful Experience


A SORROWFUL EXPERIENCE


By Captain E. H. Barclay


This is my experience of keeping foreign birds of all descriptions,

and it has been a bitter one and hence I have given up all hope of taking

really an active interest in keeping up my aviaries, of which I was

very proud and keen, but there it is. In the first place I was persecuted

by rats, which diminished my numbers very considerably, and what

was more annoying it was generally the valuable birds that were killed.

Well, eventually I overcame that curse for a period of time, and in

spite of placing wire-netting under the ground these pests managed to

eat their way through this and eat their way through the entrance

door. What can a body do with adverse circumstances like this ?

Anyway, I grew more and more disheartened at these disastrous

results, and whatever preventive I attempted was frustrated by some

other disaster. My big disappointment was in the breeding season.

Then I had some Longtailed Grassfinches which did breed, but when

the young became mature they were destroyed by some of the other

inhabitants of the aviary. Then a species of mouse worked its way in

and played havoc amongst the birds, to such an extent that breeding

was quite out of the question. My experience is very bitter, and try

how I would nothing in the aviary seemed to do well. I will say the

first two years gave me every hope that I would have a very nice

collection, some of which I brought back from the Amazon (South

America)—Tanagers, etc. I put heating oil stoves in their shelter,

but do you think the birds will ever go into them ? Not on your life.

The only time they ever will is when there is snow on the ground, but

frost and real cold—not they. Besult, death by exposure. I don’t

believe from what I have learnt that any foreign bird will live in an

open aviary unless it is built with thick glass all round, and then

nothing can injure the birds except hailstones or an earthquake ! !

The outside of the aviary is walled in all round, and plenty of shelter

and bushes, but the English climate is no good for these foreigners,

wherever they come from, I am convinced, no matter what you do.

If it is not the climate it is vermin, and I found with these to contend

with continuously keeping aviaries as a pastime was not for me any



